In buses, trucks, vans, and an ambulance—and by
plane—we came from over 20 states to the hot, sprawling city of McAllen in the
Rio Grande Valley of Texas. For two days, 100 activists taking part in the 14th
Pastors for Peace Friendshipment boxed up and labeled supplies intended for
Cuban schools, medical centers, and homes for old people. And they received
indoctrination into the practice of civil disobedience.

On July 17 the caravan set off across the border
and headed for Tampico, Mexico, where the next night they left hundreds of
boxes and eight vehicles on a dock there to be shipped to Cuba. On July 19 the
caravanistas, now joined by 30 members of Va Por Cuba, a Cuba solidarity group
based in Tampico, flew to Havana. Supporters from Canada, England, Holland, and
Germany were part of the delegation. This was the largest Friendshipment in
several years. Members of the U.S. contingent were proud to be defying U.S.
embargo laws and restrictions on travel to Cuba.

Rev. Lucius Walker, the Pastors for Peace
leader, spoke about why people are willing to put up with heat, dust,
sleeplessness, crowded school buses, along with possible prosecution by their
own government, at least for U.S. citizens. U.S. policy toward Cuba, he said,
is “outrageous, despicable, mean-spirited, and bullying. We counter our
government’s behavior with what we think is the decent and neighborly thing to
do.”

He continued, “Cuba is really an amazing country,
dedicating its resources to enhance the quality of life of its people. Rather
than one more pawn [of] global capitalism, it refuses to allow Western
corporations favorable conditions for ripping off its economy. Cuba deserves
our support and that of all decent people in the world. I shudder at [the
thought of] there being a world without Cuba, the shining example of Third
World responsibility. What if every small nation were a Cuba?” He added that
Cuba, faced with stepped-up provocations and intimidation, needs support from
true friends now as never before.

The Friendshipment delegation visited health
centers, schools, and homes for the elderly in Havana and in the eastern city
of Bayamo. Government officials, among them Ricardo Alarcón, president of the
National Assembly, discussed Cuba’s problems, among them the real threat, from
Cuba’s point of view, of military aggression from the North. At the Julio
Antonio Mella Camp for international visitors, the caravanistas joined members
of the 34th Venceremos Brigade for food, political talk, and entertainment. The
Brigade this year this year was highlighting its joint challenge with the
Friendshipment to U.S. restrictions on travel to Cuba.

At the end of the week, caravanistas were
present at a rally in front of the former Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba
held to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the attack there by a small band led
by Fidel Castro. This time, the Cuban president took note of Cuba’s gains in
social well-being, and he castigated the European Union for recent actions
taken against Cuba.

Along the way, many U.S. participants found
themselves making comparisons between Cuba and their own society. There was
talk about teachers’ and nurses’ jobs disappearing in the United States,
tuition rising for public colleges, human service organizations going private,
jobs being lost, the rich making out, and health care continuing to be tied in
with money. They found Cuba, poor and under siege for four decades,
prioritizing scarce resources to meet the basic needs of all Cubans.

They learned that to preserve the social gains
of the revolution, improvisation had been necessary, especially after the fall
of the Soviet bloc and the loss of 85% of its foreign trade. Dollars from joint
ventures and tourists go for health facilities, schools, the elderly, and
nutrition. Health workers, technicians, and teachers still work abroad by the
thousands, and now the Latin American School of Medicine—one of the stops on
the Friendshipment schedule—each year accepts 1,500 students from 24 countries,
including the United States, for a free medical education. Per capita income in
the United States is 25 times that of Cuba, yet there is little difference in
infant mortality and life expectancy between the two nations.

Pragmatism and flexibility are hallmarks of
Cuba’s socialist project. The visitors learned that too many young people were
leaving school early, and now educators pay students to finish their high
school and college courses. Families and young people lacking access to dollars
are facing undue hardship, and now Cuba trains thousands of disengaged young
people as social workers. They are paid while learning how to help their
neighbors. Shortages and transportation problems aggravate longstanding
conditions of rural isolation, and courses leading to a university degree have
been made available to country people through expanded television programming.
Educators are paying increased attention to culture—a plea from José Martí—and
new schools of art and music are being built, and hundreds of new teachers in
the arts are being trained.

Cuban teachers often speak of love for their
students, and children’s enthusiasm and attentiveness were readily apparent to
caravanistas throughout their travels. One director of a large school of the
arts in Bayamo spoke of children's “dedication.” At block parties and schools,
and at the July 26 celebration itself, little children were heard to be
speaking out with an astonishing self-confidence and clarity.

Thirteen-year-old Charlotte Aldebrón from
Presque Isle, Maine—herself an eloquent speaker at antiwar rallies in
Maine—appealed to young people in the United States with the thought, “You have
no idea of a country unless you go there.” She found Cuban children wanting to
talk with her “as a human being, not like in the United States, where often
they hold back from playing and from learning about a stranger.”

The 14th Friendshipment Caravan, however, was
mainly dedicated to the elders of Cuba. Ninety-year-old caravanista, Irv Wolf
was making his 19th trip to Cuba. “Why break a long habit? Cuba is in my
blood,” said Irv. Present at a July 26 celebration in 1960, he found people
“delirious with joy, free at last of colonial domination.” Forty-three years
later he finds a revolution gaining in strength and demonstrating to the world
that “the die is not cast”; capitalism need not last forever; socialism is
still possible.

The Friendshipment delegation placed a wreath on
the statue of Manuel de Cespedes in the central square of Bayamo, his
birthplace and home. Cespedes instigated and helped lead independence forces
fighting Cuba’s ten-year war with Spain that began in 1868.

That experience was like a vignette providing
insight into Cuba’s continuing fight for national independence, and as such, it
complemented observations and information gained about the workings of
socialism in Cuba. The impression from eight days in Cuba is of a unified
people, and it seems likely that widespread, continued dedication to the ideal of
national independence contributes mightily to such unity. Strenuous complaining
about deprivations and hardship, on the part of discouraged Cubans encountered
privately, was accompanied by an abhorrence of U.S. infringements on Cuban
sovereignty. And we came across no Cuban who did not hold Lucius Walker and the
Friendshipments in high regard.